QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR CONTRACTED MAINTENANCE IN ONTARIO, CANADA

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QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR CONTRACTED MAINTENANCE IN
ONTARIO, CANADA

• Prepared for MQA Peer Exchange, Madison Wisconsin
  - Oct. 11/04

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Overview

• Ontario Provincial Statistics
• Definition of Maintenance in Ontario
• Maintenance Contract Types
• Maintenance Standards
• Quality Assurance
• Sanctions
• Challenges
• Questions/Contact Information

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Ontario - Provincial Statistics

• 1 Million sq km (412,000 sq miles) and 10 million
  people
• Climate varies north to south, with south similar
  to Niagara Falls or Buffalo NY
• The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is
  responsible for 16,500 centreline-kms (10,250
  miles) and
• 2500 bridges
• 2 tunnels
• 29 remote airports
• 8 ferry services
• Contracted Maintenance Expenditures are about
  200M CAD
• All MTOs expenditures are only 1.5 of
  provincial government budget.

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MAINTENANCE IN ONTARIO

• Routine Maintenance
• Pothole repair
• Shoulder grading
• Repair guide rail and fences
• Sweeping and debris removal
• Traffic signal and illumination- scheduled
  maintenance and repair
• Tunnel Maintenance
• Bridge cleaning, scheduled maintenance (lift
  bridges) and minor repair
• Sign replacement
• Grass cutting and weed control

• Winter Maintenance
• Plowing, liquids, sanding and salting
• Patrolling
• Visual Inspection
• At Least Daily in Winter
• Emergency
• Response to collisions, spills

• NOT INCLUDED
• Resurfacing
• Rebuilding

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MAINTENANCE CONTRACT TYPES

• Area Maintenance Contracts (60 of Hwys.)
• Management and work by Contractor
• Vast Majority of work is Lump Sum
• Contracts contain a count of inventory, and a
  3-year history of work performed
• 7-9 Year durations
• Proposal quality factor applied to price
• Managed Outsourcing Contracts (40 of Hwys.)
• Managed by MTO Staff, all work by Contractors
• Usually at a bid price per day with risk sharing
  on annual quantity
• Mostly Functional Contracts
• Mostly 5 Year durations

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MAINTENANCE STANDARDS

• The Maintenance Quality Standards (MQS) set out
  maintenance requirements
• Many are time-based, such as x days to fix a
  given-size pothole or to repair collision damage
  to guide rail
• Mandatory patrolling frequencies are key to
  detection of defects
• At a minimum, maintenance contract requirements
  meet the MQS

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QUALITY ASSURANCE

• Front line field staff include Superintendents
  who have several Coordinators, about one per 300
  2-lane km, totalling 167 provincially
• Key program development in concert with the
  Maintenance Superintendents Committee
• Monitoring Manual sets out key requirements for
  each contract requirement
• Contractors also propose quality control
  procedures that are marked as part of proposal
  scoring.

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SANCTIONS

• Non-performance for key items identified in
  contract leads to the issuance of a Demerit
  Point
• Thresholds of Demerit Points per year and overall
  can lead to loss of the contract
• Process has been extremely effective, contractors
  take demerits much more seriously than the
  associated financial penalties.

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CHALLENGES

• Ability (and need?) to express and summarize
  performance quantitatively
• Time-based standards
• Change in a large and proud organization,
  particularly with contracts working well

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FURTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE AND SHARING
WELCOMED Sonya Skinner, P.Eng. Head,
Maintenance Contracts Ministry of
Transportation of Ontario 905 704 2975
sonya.skinner_at_mto.gov.on.ca